The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-12-04
POPULAR FLOWERS.
Delightful Memories that Cling to Fa-
vorite Old Fashioned Blossoms.
=

VOrlUe Old-FaShlOned blOSSOIuS.
From Ha,per's Magazine.
The very earliest of all cultivated plants
were grown for use-either as food or for
their reputed medicinal virtues-rather than
for their beauty. Thus the Christmas roses
of to-day so highly appreciated for their
snowy blossoms, were first valued for their
curative qualities; those afflicted with symp-
toms of madness being sent to eat the root
of helebore, in the island of Anticyra, just
us the grape-eating or bathing cures are
prescribed to-day. Hence we find in nearly
all the early books on botany and gardening
what are termed tables of the virtues"
these being supposed to set forth the yarl-
Gus effects on body or mind each kind OF
plant possessed.
All things beautiful have their uses, and
this is especially true of flowers of all kinds,
but what we like best to hear called old gar
den flowers are those we cherish like old
friends; that is to say, delightful old mem
cries cling around them, and they are rich
in the associations of bygone days What
was the favorite flower of Helen of Troy,
of the fair one of Milo whose stone portrait
is now in the Louvre, or she OF Culdos now
enshrined in the Vatican! who shall tell us
which blossom of antiquity IS the Oldest,
whether the nelumbium of Buddha or the
golden sunfiower of the Incasf were the
first gardeners Indian or Egyptlans
are questions which even the echo
of antiquity does not deign to answer.
To get back to the beginning of flowers
in gardens, we must 60 back to the
earliest period of civilization. We may
never know what flower Cleopatra had
woven in her blue black hair when Antony
was her willing captive, but we find the
mummy wreaths of blossoms culled by
hands that lived soon after the Pyramids
were being built, and the early use of flow
ers in Egypt, in Greece, i'll India and in
Mexico is well known. As far as evidence
goes, we can actually refer to the funeral
wreaths of the ancient Egyptians as being
the oldest existing remains of flowers as en-
ployed for decorative or votive uses. The
oldest Of dried flowers in herbaria-that is,
of flowers especially prepared for scientific
puIposes-do not date further back than the
middle of the sixteenth century, and yet
we find that flowers were used in
Egyptian ceremonies some three
to five thousand years ago.
About sixty distinct kinds of flowers
and plants have been identified, and by
placing these in warm water DR.. Schwein-
furth, of Cairo, has succeeded in relaxing
and preparing a series of specimens gath
cred 4, 200 years ago, and these MIR. Carru-
theirs; of the British Museum, tells us are as
satisfactory for the purposes OF science as
any collected at the present day. These
plant remains were enforced by the ban
dageS or mummy wrappers, and being her
medically sealed, have been preserved with
scarcely any change. The blue water lily
or lotus, the poppy, the larkspur, flax, char
lock, knapweed and other flowers are per-
fectly preserved, the garlands being woven
together with strips of the Nile reed or
papyrus of the ancient scribes.
Old fashioned flowers represent for us the
ideals of our ancestors, and in historic in
terest go back much further than the oldest
silverware, of Oriental porcelain or the
period of Chippendale and of Sheraton.
We know somewhat of the flowers of Greece
from their old plays. In Sophocles' "CEdi-
pus at Colonus' we read of wine-dark ivy
and bowers rich in fruits and berries land
fed of heavenly dew, the narcissus blooms
worn by morn with fair clusters, crown of
the great goddesses from of yore and the
crocus blooms with golden beam" The vine
and gray leaved olive are there also.
From the earliest period the garden and
its flowers have been tended by women's
hands. The hanging gardens of Babylon
were especially made for woman, and If
we cannot give an earlier date, we may at
any rate rest assured that good many gar
dens have been made for them since that
time. The earliest date know of i'll secu
lar history referring definitely to flower cul-
ture is in Prof Monier Williams transla-
ton of the poems of KalidaSi. This Hindoo
poet, who wrote the beautiful drama
'Sakuntala Regained by the King" B. C,
So, is careful enough to tell us that the King
DuShyanta, when hunting, first saw the
lovely bride as she, with her maids, was
watering the flowers in hermitage garden
in which she had accidentally taken shelter.
Chaucer's exquisite admiration for the
daisy is matter of history second only to
his love for the month of May. But it is
when we get to EliZabethan dayS-the epoch
of Spenser, Jonson, Raleigh and Shakes
peare-that we get into the heyday of old
fashioned flowers. When the modern Lady
Corisande leans back in her boudoir reading
these pages | should like to ask her what she
would give to have been Anne Hathaway in
that little timber-framed house at Shottery
when Shakespeare walked over from STRAIT
ford at eventide to whisper in her ears ''the
old, old story" Song of nightingale or of
the bluebird is not sweeter than Shakes
peares love as put into the mouth of
Romeo or other Of his youthful char
acters Then you know his estimate
of sweet woman by the womanly be-
havior of Rosalind, of Beatrice, of Imogen,
or of Juliet. You remember the meanings
of floral language which he places in the
mouth of ''Perdita" in the winters
Tale" and of "Ophelia" in Hamlet"
There's rue for you There's rosemary;
that's for remembrance. With ali
"Romeo" and half score of other lovers in
his heart, what a real sweet wooing was
that to which the Warwickshire maiden
listened on the seat by the door of her
fathers house at Shottery village when
rosemary and sweetbrier were fragrant
after rain in June, and neat cabbage roses
yielded incense sweeter than all the spices
of Eastern seasl To mention tho mere fact
of Shakspeare's love for garden and field
flowers is enough, since Canon Ellacombe
has collected and arranged the whole in
most interesting volume, known as "Plant
Lore Of Shakespeare"